8.0 and Onwards.

[ShadowyZero]

Hello lore enthusiasts there is burning questions i am wondering for those of you who like myself have been avid fans of the lore, history, and backgrounds of final fantasy xiv for many years.
and that would be how do you feel about the current direction or narrative? would you change anything ? and lastly would you be excited if they wrote a completely original and brand new story come 8.0 an further?

to add my own thoughts: i enjoyed this roller coaster of emotions an surprises we went on thru out all of 1.0-6.5 an i think its nice to go on one last adventure with the scions with the addition of dawntrail.
if i could change some things however it would be to let the scions go off an do their own aspirations for a change an let our Warrior do what they do best an thats seek new experiences, meet new people, take on new challenges, and see whole entire new worlds. and most importantly for the writers to not be afraid to take risks an to elaborate on what i mean by that is they shouldn't be afraid to come up with unique ideas or challenge our perceptions its exciting to be surprised by something we never saw coming o r have ever seen before, don't get me wrong the classics always have a special place in the heart but its great every once in awhile to get this big plot reveal that something new is on the horizon or headed our way.

[Astralia]

I don't know if it would answer your question neither it can enter this thread. But my thoughts on one thing: The WoL is too powerful as of now, even the scions became powerful enough to be on a par with the city heads or the most powerful monsters we encountered so far. I can't possibly imagine a new menace after EW's last boss, on the edge of the universe. Even without the "friendship power", the fact that, indeed, the WoL can't do everything by himself, or Hydaelyn's benediction, he was already that good before, did face up to the greatest menace all the time. That's one thing I would change.

I'd still be excited to explore the unexplored area, only mentioned in dialogues till now, live Corvus, or other, to see more of Ivalice (but that's another topic given their partnership with ff XII's team), stag like that, and of course I'd be excited to see a new original story, even if they still have more things to take from other ff

On a more gameplay-oriented aspect, I'd change the formula for each expansion: dungeons lv x1, x3, x5, x7, x9 and primals lv x4 and x4 and x9

[Cleretic]

Hello lore enthusiasts there is burning questions i am wondering for those of you who like myself have been avid fans of the lore, history, and backgrounds of final fantasy xiv for many years.
and that would be how do you feel about the current direction or narrative? would you change anything ? and lastly would you be excited if they wrote a completely original and brand new story come 8.0 an further?

Buddy, the only people who can answer this question with any level of confidence are probably the ones that shouldn't have that confidence. We can't predict the expansion after next and our feelings on it without even knowing where the next expansion is going. Basically the only thing we can all agree on in Dawntrail predictions is that we can't reliably predict crap, because there's clearly very important points on the storyline that we don't know and have no clues on; asking us what we want from 8.0 without having 7.0 is gonna get worse results than asking me to predict the 2028 presidential election.

I feel like the only time in the game's history when this level of long-distance shot of a question was ever plausible was in 2.x; with the upcoming expansion at that time bringing us to Ishgard, the logical next stop would've naturally been the other Eorzean nation that we hadn't been to, and if you're doing an Ala Mhigan story it would've naturally been about the Imperial occupation. We're nowhere near that level of confidence right now; while I'm fairly sure 8.0 will be Meracydia and I have some thought about what I'd want from that (mostly 'area based on Coober Pedy, place based on Uluru as a boss arena'), I have no idea why we'd go there or who would join us. And the history of the game actually teaches me that even that's not high odds, and equally plausible is that we go to Mars and the resulting expansion is somehow considered a modern masterpiece.

[ShadowyZero]

oh i am not asking anyone to make predictions or anything sorry if my questions may have come off that way to you. what i'm curious about is just how fellow story enjoyers like myself feel about the progression of events, characters, and worlds. and what they may like to see change in future expansions its never too early or too late for us to add ideas the developers are probably halfway done writing the Dawntrail story hooks an also brainstorming what comes next even as we speak. but that doesn't mean we can't discuss our own ideas to give them inspiration from or maybe have them take a look into etc.

[Cleretic]

oh i am not asking anyone to make predictions or anything sorry if my questions may have come off that way to you. what i'm curious about is just how fellow story enjoyers like myself feel about the progression of events, characters, and worlds. and what they may like to see change in future expansions its never too early or too late for us to add ideas the developers are probably halfway done writing the Dawntrail story hooks an also brainstorming what comes next even as we speak. but that doesn't mean we can't discuss our own ideas to give them inspiration from or maybe have them take a look into etc.

No, you are asking us to make predictions, you're just not asking it directly. We cannot voice our 'feelings about the progression of events, characters and worlds' in 8.0 without knowing what 7.0 is like, and what information we have both from history and about Dawntrail itself says that we can't even make an especially accurate 7.0 prediction. We don't know how, or even if, Y'shtola is involved in the events of Dawntrail, so how the hell am I supposed to have feelings about what she does in 8.0?

Even your original post makes predictions, albeit very conservative ones; you assume the Scions will remain static, and that Dawntrail will be essentially self-contained, with no lasting effects in any way. Those sound pretty reasonable on their surface, but given one of the only things we know about Dawntrail are that we're in some way opposed to Thancred and Urianger, and that Solution Nine is definitely at least slightly nuts (although I think people are over-saucing their predictions on it), I don't think you should be standing on those assumptions as surely as you are.

[diamondedge83]

i think its nice to go on one last adventure with the scions with the addition of dawntrail.
if i could change some things however it would be to let the scions go off an do their own aspirations for a change an let our Warrior do what they do best an thats seek new experiences, meet new people, take on new challenges, and see whole entire new worlds. and most importantly for the writers to not be afraid to take risks an to elaborate on what i mean by that is they shouldn't be afraid to come up with unique ideas or challenge our perceptions its exciting to be surprised by something we never saw coming o r have ever seen before, don't get me wrong the classics always have a special place in the heart but its great every once in awhile to get this big plot reveal that something new is on the horizon or headed our way.

People seem to forget that this is a Final Fantasy game and that the Scions are THE PARTY a.k.a. the main characters. They aren't going anywhere. The lineup may vary from time to time, but Cloud isn't going to ditch Avalanche, Terra isn't going to ditch The Returners, the Warrior of Light isn't going to ditch the Scions of the Seventh Dawn. As for the scions doing "their own aspirations" and the WoL "doing what they do best", that's going to happen anyway as it always does, yet the party is still going places together.

[ShadowyZero]

No, you are asking us to make predictions, you're just not asking it directly.

i really think there is a misunderstanding here.. i am asking people their thoughts about all things that lead up to now and how they feel about all that and if there is anything they would want to see changed or done differently in the future.

do you have any thoughts on all things leading up to now? and if you could do things differently than how would you do that?
and would you be excited or thrilled if they came up with something unexpected or unique for example lets take how they handled Shadowbringers we were dealing with a conflict with garlemald an our collective battle with the ascians was about to reach its close but then we got called to go to a whole nother world because we were needed and our fate had we stayed would've been grim an spelt disaster for the world we sought to protect. there were no for sure hints that i saw that suggested we were going to the warriors of darkness' homeworld because we had met them clear back in heavensward and minfilia had pledged to deal with their set of circumstances. while we went to the east of eorzea to help liberate ala mhigo an then got caught up with doma as well in the process but the plot threads were already there for doma and ala mhigo within A Realm Reborn.

[ShadowyZero]

People seem to forget that this is a Final Fantasy game and that the Scions are THE PARTY a.k.a. the main characters. .

i am aware that this is Final Fantasy its one of the reasons i picked up this game because i grew up with the franchise as a lil boy with the games of nintendo, and original playstation and later the ps2 platform and further later when they added titles to the xbox360 and ps3

but its not wrong to ask for new adventure or journey
ffx's sequel had members of the same cast but they created a new story that didn't focus on the events of the past
ffiv's sequel focused on the child of cecil and rosa but still delivered new paths for their cast
ffxiii mixed up its story with its sequel as well giving us new direction an with a new party
the prequel to ffvii had us playing as Zack an already established character but gave us an endearing story an insights into characters we never heard of before and similarly with the sequel to ffvii the dirge of cerberus we play as vincent valentine an get to save the planet with him as the leading star of the game

so what makes ffxiv so different from all that??? i am confused by your reply that we can't mix up the cast or go off on a brand new story when in the FF history they've done just that with sequels and prequels

[KageTokage]

If anything, I'd really like the next major story arc to be revolving around some kind of existential crisis kicked off by the absence of Hydaelyn and Zodiark.

It was implied the shards are naturally inclined towards rejoining with the Source and the former was actively preventing that, so now that she's gone it would really only make sense if there were some meaningful repercussions.

[diamondedge83]

but its not wrong to ask for new adventure or journey

...Dawntrail IS a new Adventure/Journey.

ffx's sequel had members of the same cast but they created a new story that didn't focus on the events of the past

We must have played completely different FFX-2s, because mine was all about the past both the war between Zanarkand and Bevelle, and everyone trying to find their place in a world without SIN, there is no present without the past, it is always a part of the story.

ffiv's sequel focused on the child of cecil and rosa but still delivered new paths for their cast

Every surviving party member of FFIV is also in the party in TAY and they are all the most important characters in the story. In fact several new characters are not important and at least 6 of them are optional.

ffxiii mixed up its story with its sequel as well giving us new direction an with a new party
the prequel to ffvii had us playing as Zack an already established character but gave us an endearing story an insights into characters we never heard of before and similarly with the sequel to ffvii the dirge of cerberus we play as vincent valentine an get to save the planet with him as the leading star of the game

Personally I thought FFXIII was hot garbage, so no comment on its sequels, as for the others those are all side stories.

so what makes ffxiv so different from all that??? i am confused by your reply that we can't mix up the cast or go off on a brand new story when in the FF history they've done just that with sequels and prequels

Simple, we're not playing sequels or prequels; we are still playing FFXIV. Heavensward, Stormblood, Shadowbringers, Endwalker, Dawntrail and beyond are not sequels, prequels, or side stories, they are EXPANSIONS. Also, we ARE going off on a brand new story. Endwalker was a book-end for the Hydaelyn/Zodiark Arc, which means Dawntrail is the New Bookend for the start of the Next Arc. You're getting everything you're asking for except for throwing away the party.